A capability framework outlines the skills, behaviours and knowledge required for an organisation’s personnel to achieve business goals. By defining these at all levels in your company, you create a universal language that’s accessible for everyone. For more content like this, check out Acorn Labs: http://acornlabs.education/

1. Workforce
Capability
Frameworks
What are they and why do
they matter?

2. What is a capability?
A capability is a mix of knowledge, skills, tools, processes and
behaviours that combine to deliver an organisational objective.
They are usually defined from business outcomes or value
streams and then broken down by job role and job family.

3. What is a capability framework?
A capability framework outlines the skills, behaviours and
knowledge required for an organisation’s personnel to achieve
business goals.
It defines the capabilities that are fundamentally important for
an employee to be successful in their role. Capabilities will and
should change as your company grows and your goals evolve.

4. Why capabilities?
Skills can often be portable across organisations, but
capabilities and capability frameworks are always contextually
unique to your company. They aren’t tied to one team or
process either. Your capabilities and capability framework are
cross-functional.

5. Proficiency
A capability framework shows capabilities by levels of
proficiency. Proficiencies correlate to a standard of
performance expected at a certain level of employment. It’s a
matter of progressively increasing capacity and competency.

7. Focus capabilities
Focus or core capabilities are the main groupings of capabilities
within a framework. These are the highest levels of knowledge,
skills and attributes employees must possess to effectively
perform their roles.
Focus capabilities are generally meant to be viewed
contextually together to gain a more comprehensive picture of
business goals and expectations for employees.

9. Reducing risk
A sustainable and successful business, company or agency
needs a plan that accounts for best- and worst-case scenarios.
Reducing and possibly preventing business risk is a core
element of capability frameworks. And it’s not just for large
enterprises either. Smaller organisations without a HR team can
hugely benefit from one too.

10. Benefits For
Managers

11. Job Role Descriptions
If you have occupation-specific capability sets, managers are
able to note the foundational capabilities expected for a
certain role without much fanfare.

12. Recruitment
Frameworks can be used by managers in interviews as a
demonstration of potential career growth, and even made
public as part of a brand toolkit and employee value
proposition.

13. Performance Management
Effective performance management means managers
who can align individual behaviours and motivators with a
collective purpose. They also need to be able to measure
current performance as an account for future potential.

14. Strategic Workforce Planning
Smart HR decisions cannot be made without strategically
aligned capability framework that provide meaningful
context. They provide an accurate metric to assess
candidate potential and suitability.

15. Benefits For
Employees

16. Better Day-To-Day Performance
Many employees don’t know or fully understand what is
expected of them. A capability framework is a central
source that employees can turn to when they can’t ask
others.

17. Encourage Self-Reflection
Proficiency levels within your framework gives employees
markers on which to base their own performance. The
ability to reflect on one’s own performance also means
less micromanaging is needed.

18. Establish Learning Opportunities
A capability framework allows employees to seek out
opportunities that may be outside their current job scope
but have the combined advantage of interesting them and
still being of benefit to your company.

19. Capabilities and
L&D

20. Learning and development
Without a capability framework, you could fall into the trap of
ad hoc learning and development.
Well-managed L&D can deliver the right people with the right
skills at the moment of need, now and into the future. To
effectively track development against your capability
framework, you’ll want to do 3 things.

21. Align learning with capabilities
Your capability framework should link employees’
personal goals with business objectives. One of L&D’s
primary functions is to develop people in a way that
supports key business priorities.

22. Evaluate learning differences
When you factor in capability frameworks for determining
learning efficacy, it then becomes a question of whether
learning is effectively targeting the capabilities you need
to achieve business goals.

23. Support skills application
90% of learned knowledge is forgotten within a week. The
solution is to reinforce learning on the job, or in the flow of
work. Learning pathways, skills registers and capability
frameworks are inherently linked by how employees
actually implement learning in the workplace.

24. You can learn more about this
topic by checking out the full
article:
https://acornlms.com/resources/capabi
lity-framework